Friday, March 24, 2017

March 23, 2017 (CNN) A former Russian lawmaker
and Kremlin critic who fled to Ukraine last year was shot dead Thursday in Kiev
-- a killing that Ukraine's President called a "Russian state terrorist
act." Denis Voronenkov, who'd been a Communist member of Russia's lower
legislative house before he left, was fatally shot outside a hotel in broad
daylight, officials said. Voronenkov becomes the latest in a string of Russian
critics of President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government who were killed
or injured in mysterious circumstances. The suspect in his death died in the
hospital after a shootout with Voronenkov's bodyguard.

A Ukrainian police officer seizes a gun at the scene where
Voronenkov was shot dead on Thursday.

Denis Voronenkov, a former Communist legislator
in Russia's lower legislative house, was shot dead in Kiev on Thursday,
Ukrainian authorities say. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called Thursday's
killing a "Russian state terrorist act" on Twitter, and described
Voronenkov as "one of the key witnesses of the Russian aggression against
Ukraine" -- referring to Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea
region and a subsequent war with pro-Russian rebels. Poroshenko's accusation
drew a sharp rebuke from Moscow. Any claims that Russia is connected to the
killing are "absurd," Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according
to Russian state-run TASS news agency. Voronenkov had denounced Russia's 2014 annexation
of Crimea and said he was cooperating with Ukrainian prosecutors' treason case
against former President Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian politician who fled
Ukraine after deadly 2014 protests.